


Crematorium

by keyboardclicks



Series: Stories from a Seer [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Doomsday Prophecies, Gen, Originally I had Indrid getting really upset and like, Post Current Canon, but it didn't seem to fit the tone, maybe I'll write a followup where he revisits the visions with someone there with him, physically shaking an needing comfort, will likely not be canon compliant in like five episodes but eh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 02:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16734990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyboardclicks/pseuds/keyboardclicks
Summary: Indrid Sees the world burn.  He can't keep it to himself.





	Crematorium

Indrid didn’t often get Big prophecies. Sure, there were things like the general store being destroyed and the lift connecting top side and bottom side being destroyed, but each of those only involved a handful of people, and didn’t necessarily involve changing the fate of an entire country like the Silver Bridge collapse or the Kennedy assassination. They were bigger than a lot of things he saw, most of the time concurrently keeping track of several minorly different approaching futures that went out like blown candles out as one became the present, immediately replaced by new possibilities stretching on into infinity. Similarly, his visions didn’t take over his actual eyesight; he more saw the future form _around_ the present. If he were to explain it to someone, he’d say that the present was the television right in front of him, and all the futures surrounded that particular screen, playing anywhere from a few seconds to a few days to a few years ahead until they became impossible, and then switched to another channel with the same show. It was a lot of information to handle at once, and Indrid felt no small amount of pride in his ability to handle it all at once.

But oh. This one was _big._

Indrid had been walking out of the bedroom when it came, so intense that he fell to his knees then forward onto his elbows. Visions themselves weren’t painful but a mind could only process so much information at once without at least the consequence of a headache. And there was a _lot_ to process from not just one possible future, but _dozens,_ all nearly identical scenes of destruction.

Besides, _oh wow, fuck this hurts!,_ Indrid’s first thought was that he had to draw this, had to get it down, couldn’t risk forgetting a single detail. It was more a reflex than a thought when his hand groped around on the table above him, pulling down a stack of printer paper that fluttered to the ground around him. The pencil came from under the couch, where it had rolled the previous day.

Fire. Fire everywhere, in each corner of his mind’s eye, unrelenting. The treetops of the Monongahela forest bursting into flames, houses reducing themselves to ash, crying and screaming as people tried to run for cover. 

Cars and street signs melting into puddles of liquid and rubber in the street. Rivers and lakes all running dry, boiling and turning to steam. Animals baking and plants shriveling under the unforgiving sun. A sun that was too close, _much too close_.

And the people- no, no no no stop, he couldn’t handle the people. That was too terrible, even for him who had foreseen a thousand deaths. This type of death was too awful to witness, too terrible and inhumane to watch. And they happened to _everyone._

He pushed those visions away to the edge of his mind where he would be ever aware of their presence but could-hopefully-ignore them for his own sanity.

The Seer had seen more than enough, though, and made his way on all fours to the bathroom, where he promptly emptied the contents of his stomach next to the toilet. _Ah, well, close enough._

Then he sat for a long time on the floor, attempting to make sense of what he’d Seen.

And getting absolutely nowhere.

But that’s fine. It’s not his job to understand what he Sees, just to See it, and to pass it along to those who need to know. Those who can understand. Those who can help.

In ten minutes, Aubrey Little would be sitting in front of the fire at the Amnesty Lodge with the Sylph named Dani beside her and an enormous rabbit on her lap, listening to Barclay tell a story. Ned Chicane would be sitting at a table, writing on the price tags of some shirts he sold at the Cryptonomica to read $19.99, rather than $9.99. Duck Newton would be at home, having a conversation with… a sword with a mouth? That sure was weird! But there were more pressing matters at hand.

The campsite’s public phone wasn’t far away, but it was far enough that Indrid had to bundle up in all of his layers to make the trip. His fingers fidgeted nervously while the other end rang, pressing the freezing receiver between his ear and shoulder so as to keep his hands stuffed firmly into his pockets.

Duck picked up on the third ring.

“Go for Duck.”

“Hello, Duck,” Indrid said. “Sorry to disturb you so late at night.”

“That’s alright, Indrid. What’s up?”

“Well, I just came into some very… _interesting_ and _important_ that I thought you should know about.”

“Aw hell,” Duck cursed softly. “Another one already? But we just took care of that big brain tree thing!”

“Yes, I know. This… doesn’t concern an abomination. At least I don’t belieeeeeve it does? It’s… it’s quite difficult to describe, Duck. I’m calling to ask if you would mind coming up to see me as soon as possible.”

There was a long, suffering sigh on the other end of the line. “Well, you-”

“- **already know I’m going to say yes,** yes but I thought it would be more polite to ask than to demand. I’ll call Aubrey and Ned and see you all in, oh, about thirty two minutes, give or take. Be careful driving, though; there’s a _nasty_ pothole on Hinton Street and if you don’t watch for it I see quite a few futures where your car has a flat tire.”

Duck laughed a bit. “Thanks for the heads up, buddy. See you in thirty.”

“Thirty two,” Indrid corrected, and Duck laughed one more time before hanging up the phone.

Aubrey was next, and while Indrid tried to calculate his call so that the Lady Flame herself would answer, he was just a smidgen off and the voice of Barclay answered instead, saying, “Amnesty Lodge, Barclay speaking.”

“Hello, Barclay,” said Indrid pleasantly. “May I please speak to miss Aubrey Little?”

Barclay was quiet a moment, considering the familiar voice cautiously before saying, “Uh, yeah, just a second.”

It would actually be three seconds, but regardless.

“Hel...lo?” said the desired voice on the other end. “This is Aubrey Little.”

“Good evening, Aubrey. How are you tonight?”

“Oh! Hey, Indrid! I should have figured you’d be the only one calling me this late. I’m-”

“ **-good, just chilling at the lodge.** That’s nice to hear. Now, I’m very sorry to interrupt what I’m sure is a lovely evening, but Duck and Ned are going to be by the lodge to pick you up in about seventeen minutes because I need the three of you to come see me ASAP.”

“Huh? This late? But it’s dark and freezing!”

“Yes, I am well aware of that fact,” Indrid agrees, trying to keep the shiver out of his voice. “I am standing outside at the park’s public phone as we speak. It’s really quite unnerving, being outside, alone, in the forest all by oneself! But I promise you, it is of the utmost importance that you come.”

“Ooh! Did you-” she lowers her voice to a low whisper. “Did you have a vision about the bom-bom’s?”

Indrid has absolutely no idea what that means, so he just says, “It’s quite difficult to explain over the phone.”

“Yeah, I get it. Alright, I’ll wait for Duck and see you soon.”

“Yes, see you soon, Aubrey.”

The phone clicks, and Indrid dials the final number. He gets the Cryptonomica’s answering machine at first, which Indrid figures is because it’s after closing hours and Ned reasonably doesn’t want to answer the phone. He gets an answering machine the second time, as well, and the third, until Ned finally picks up with a forcefully cheerful, “Hello, Ned Chicane speaking. If you have questions about the Cyrptonomica, please call back-”

“ **-during our business hours,** yes, hello, Ned.”

“Oh! Hello, friend Indrid! What can I do for you this fine evening?”

“Well, Ned, I need you to put on your coat and boots because in about three minutes, Duck Newton’s car will pull into your driveway and you need to get into that car because he and Aubrey have already agreed to come meet me at my home and it would be beneficial to have you here, as well.”

Ned huffed. 

“ **Three minutes?! That’s no warning at all!** I know, but if you had picked up on one of my first three rings then you would have had more time.”

“We’re closed! And besides, weren’t you able to tell I wouldn’t pick up? You should have called earlier.”

“Not a mind reader, Ned,” Indrid reminds. “I saw futures where you picked up on the first ring, the second, the third, and so on. How was I to know how many it would take? You should hurry, though; Duck will be there in… now about two minutes and you wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

Indrid hangs up this time, partially because he knows that arguing with Ned any further will get him nowhere and partially because it is _much too cold_ and he wants to get back into his Winnebago before his nose freezes off.

The pine guard arrived about three minutes later than he predicted, but Indrid didn't mention this as he welcomed them into his camper and they all began peeling off the outer layers of their clothing.

“So, what’s the emergency?” asked Aubrey, straight to the point as she jumped up to sit on a countertop cluttered with various newspapers. “Did you get an early read on the next bom-bom?”

“No? Honestly I’m not sure what you mean when you- oh. Oh, that’s what you call the abominations, okay, I see.” He nodded, seeing how the conversation would play out and rendering it irrelevant. “That is a possibility, but honestly… what I Saw was on too massive of a scale to be one of them. At least I sure hope so.”

“Shit," Ned cursed. "Really? Something even worse than the last one? I’m still sore from the walloping I took!”

Scooping up up the various drawings he had done when the visions first hit and pinning them to the wall, Indrid nodded.

“I'm not going to sugarcoat it; what I saw was… it was terrible,” he said plainly. “I’ve never seen something like it and I’ve been doing this for quite a long time.” He pinned up the last picture and leaned against the wall beside them. “To put it in a word, I saw fire. I saw Keplar burning to the ground. But it wasn’t just Keplar, it was _everything._ It was the whole world, up in flames-” The visions attempted to creep their way back into the forefront of his mind, but he shook them off, then gestured to the different pictures that each showed scenes of destruction around the world: oceans evaporating into nothing, skyscrapers and monuments melting to the ground, forests turned into massive, deadly bonfires. “It was like the sun had gotten too close and the world was just… combusting. Nothing was left alive.”

“Well,” Ned laughed nervously. “I mean, that’s just one vision, right? There’s probably always a chance of that happening, what with global warming and stuff. You probably just saw some forest fires and overreacted!”

“ **I’m sure we’re fine**.” No stranger to being brushed off, Indrid only wished he could say it became easier. “I wish I could agree, Ned, but it wasn’t just one vision it was _dozens._ I didn’t get an exact number but it was too many to ignore.”

“What?!” Aubrey blurted. "Seriously?!”

“We can’t handle something like that!” Ned insisted, and Indrid mouthed the words along with him. “We’re just- hell, I don’t even know what we are! You’ve gotta-”

“ **-tell someone else, someone who can do something.** Ned, I _understand_ but you three are the only people I can tell who I know will take me seriously! I’ve tried to warn people about terrible things since I got to your world, and rarely does anyone listen until it’s already too late! I don’t know if this is the work of an abomination, or even related to Sylvain, but I had to tell _somebody_ and you three are the only ones I could trust.”

Duck fell back to sit on the sofa, wringing his hands nervously and staring at the floor. The RV was quiet for a long time before he asked, “...How far into the future is all this?”

“A few months?” Indrid shrugged. “Years, maybe? With so many different visions of similar things it’s nearly impossible to tell.” He massaged the bridge of his nose under his glasses, pushing them up but not completely off and closed his eyes with a sigh. “I could likely get more information if I viewed the visions for a longer period of time, but… I won’t lie, the experience was quiet unpleasant. I’m not eager to repeat it.”

“That bad, huh?” asked Aubrey quietly, and Indrid gave a solemn nod.

“To put it plainly… the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But even worse is that I really have no idea why it’s coming, or what can be done to stop it. With things before this at least I could try. I could go to someone and say something to try and make them understand that disaster was about to strike, but this?” He gestured to the pencil sketches. “I can’t stop this. I don’t even know what _this_ really is.”

He ran a tired hand through his hair, having suddenly realized how grim this all sounded. “I’m… sorry for bumming you all out like this. But it's not often I get big visions like this and if I don’t tell someone about them I tend to go a _little bit_ crazy.”

“Oh, I get it,” Aubrey nodded. “Having a secret you can’t tell is like _the worst thing_ _ever._ Like once my dad told me what he was giving my mom for her birthday and I knew it was exactly what she wanted and he made me promise not to tell. But like, then I was just acting all excited and happy around her and when she kept asking me what it was I said that Dad had gotten her the best gift ever, and it totally ruined part of the surprise! Now when I have secrets I can’t spill I tell Dr. Harris Bonkers; he’s good at keeping things hush-hush.”

Indrid… doesn’t know who that person is and why they have such an amusing name, but the tidbit makes him smile nonetheless.

“Yes, well, I suppose that’s who you all are to me. And honestly, after seeing what I saw… well, I’ll admit that it’s just nice to have a bit of company.” Indrid sank a bit, admitting that. Witnessing the death and destruction of an entire world made him feel... quite lonely. An odd feeling, in all honesty.

“We’ll be okay,” Duck eventually said. “Whatever you saw? We’ll take care of it.”

“We will?”.

“Yes, Ned, we will." He groaned. "It’s… I know I haven’t been the most forward when it comes to this whole ‘destiny’ thing, other than carrying Beacon around sometimes, but... I’ve seen that fire before, in a dream a real long time ago. I don’t know what it is or why it happens, but apparently it’s got something to do with me?” He sighed heavily and rubbed his chin, looking at Indrid from his seat on the couch. “I don’t know what I’ll do, or even if I’ll be that good at it. But I've been figuring for a while now that I don't really got a choice.”

“Hell yeah!” Aubrey laughed, her boots making a loud _clunk_ noise as they landed on the hardwood floor. “Plus, Duck, you’ve got me! The Lady Flame! I’m not gonna let a little _fire_ scare me!”

Ned smiled, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “And I’ll, of course, be happy to help, as well! This is my world, too, after all. I wouldn’t be a very responsible citizen if I just let it burn up.”

“You just don’t want us to get all the credit!” Aubrey accused. Ned affected offense, and Duck laughed while the two of them bickered, though a crease was still evident on his brow.

The future had been… weird for the past few months here in Keplar. The patterns that Indrid had learned to recognize and interpret were disturbed by a vastly annoying abominable tree, and he’d seen almost certain destruction avoided more times in the past two months than he would usually see in a year, and all of it centers around the Pine Guard who, for whatever reason, were really good at fixing futures that had broken. They could take the slimmest chance of hope, the one future that hadn't fallen into despair, and get themselves there. Indrid didn't know if was magic or destiny or luck or a combination of all three, but he knew that if the fate of two worlds had to be in anyone’s hands, he was sure glad it was these three.

And at the edges of his brain, on the televisions in the very corners of his vision, a few of those hellish futures flickered out.


End file.
